The Government has just announced relaxed rules on planning applications, which means people will now be allowed to extend their homes without having to go through long and extensive planning bureaucracy. Furthermore, businesses will also have the opportunity to extend their properties.
For a limited period of time homeowners won’t need planning permission to build house extensions for up to eight metres for detached homes and six metres for others. Until now, people were required to have full planning permission if they wanted to expand their homes with more than three or four metres from the rear house wall.
Shops and offices on the other hand, will be able to expand their premises by 100 square metres and their industrial units by 200 square metres.
According to the Prime Minister David Cameron, these new Permitted Development Rights will help revive the economy and in turn help end the recession. He furthermore said: "This government means business in delivering plans to help people build new homes and kick-start the economy. We're determined to cut through the bureaucracy that holds us back. That starts with getting the planners off our backs, getting behind the businesses that have the ambition to expand and meeting the aspirations of families that want to buy or improve a home."
The new Housing Minister Mark Prisk has thereby a challenging agenda in front of him to boost house-building in the following weeks.
These are exciting times not only for homeowners and businesses, but also for the construction industry in general as relaxing the planning extension rules will bring more contracts for architects, surveyors, developers and engineers who will be the experts building the home and office extensions that people and businesses will be looking for.
